Since the 1990s, Texas has been a Republican stronghold. The late Democratic governor, Ann Richards, was voted out of office in 1994, when she lost to Republican George W. Bush (who went on to be elected president in 2000). And Democrats have been struggling in statewide races in Texas ever since.

Yet in 2018, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas) narrowly lost to incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). And the fact that a Democrat came within striking distance in a U.S. Senate race sent shockwaves through Texas politics.

Now, according to Politico, another U.S. Senate race is worrying GOP strategists in the Lone Star State.

Two well-known conservatives — veteran Washington Post columnist George Will and former Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Matthews, who served in the first Trump Administration — believe that Texas' 2026 U.S. Senate race could be in play for Democrats if State Attorney General Ken Paxton is the GOP nominee instead of incumbent Sen. John Cornyn. However, Will and Matthews also stress that Cornyn, if he wins the primary, would be very hard to beat in the general election.

In an article published on February 26, Politico journalists Liz Crampton, Jordain Carney, Samuel Benson, Alex Gangitano and Adam Wren report that "Republicans in Washington" are "growing more alarmed that their increasingly vicious intraparty contest could cost them a must-win Senate seat."

According to the reporters, "Sen. John Cornyn appears to be headed to an expensive and nasty 10-week runoff against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, with a strong chance that Paxton wins the nomination even after national Republicans spent months airing his dirty laundry all over the Texas airwaves in an effort to boost Cornyn….If Cornyn loses the primary, Senate Republicans worry they could be forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars that could otherwise go toward key battleground races in expensive states like North Carolina, Georgia or Michigan, complicating their path toward holding Senate control."

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) is among the Republicans who is sounding the alarm about Texas.

Thune told Politico, "Honestly, if you look at the polling in a general election setting, I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that the seat (flips), depending on who the Democrats nominate….We have to be prepared to spend there, and that's a very different scenario if Cornyn's the nominee. He is by far, I think, the best candidate on the ballot in a general election — not only for the Senate, but also, for down-ballot races in the House that could be impacted by the Senate race too."

A GOP operative, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told Politico, "All signs indicate that Paxton probably finishes first. We're just hoping the gap is close enough (that) the narrative isn't 'Paxton kicked the crap out of Cornyn.'"

Cornyn told Politico, "Unfortunately, the attorney general has got so much baggage and corruption in his wake that he will jeopardize our chances of keeping this seat red in November. I believe that I can help President Trump in (the) end of his second term by not only winning this race, but bringing along some of these congressmen who are running in these five new congressional seats. Ken Paxton jeopardizes all of that."

Lone Star politics were recently rocked by a bombshell when, in a deep red district in the Fort Worth suburbs, Democrat Taylor Rehmet won a special election for a Texas State Senate seat by 14 percent. Donald Trump carried that district in 2024 by 17 percent in 2024.

In Texas, Democrats perform well in major urban centers like Houston, Austin and El Paso but struggle in statewide races. The last time a Democrat won a gubernatorial race in Texas was Richards' victory in 1990, and the state's last Democratic U.S. senator, Bob Krueger, left office in 1993 after losing a special election to Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Moreover, Texas hasn't gone Democratic in a presidential race since Jimmy Carter in 1976.

President Donald Trump's biggest personal obsession has become a wildly expensive "political headache" at the worst possible time, and according to a new report from The Hill, GOP senators are admitting to him behind the scenes that they cannot support it.

Trump has become more and more obsessed with building his increasingly expensive and hugely unpopular White House ballroom project since it was first announced, with the president now claiming that it is a security necessity as he continues to bring it up at seemingly every opportunity.

The ballroom's proposed budget has grown increasingly expensive, with recent estimates calling for $400 million to build and an extra $1 billion for security. Despite Trump's initial pledge that it would be entirely funded by himself and private donors, some GOP lawmakers have begun pushing for the use of tax dollars to help pay for it. Others in the party are now growing frustrated over the proposals for this, believing that siphoning over $1 billion for Trump's vanity project will tank their midterms messaging, as voters overwhelmingly signal that the cost of living is their biggest issue.

As The Hill explained on Monday, the push for the ballroom in the Senate took a major hit after the chamber's parliamentarian ruled that the GOP's "plan to provide hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for Trump’s ballroom violated the Senate’s Byrd Rule and could not pass the Senate with a simple majority," requiring 60 votes to move ahead. Democrats have celebrated this ruling and pledged to keep fighting future efforts, while Majority Leader John Thune's office said that they would simply "Redraft. Refine. [And] Resubmit" the proposal.

Privately, however, GOP lawmakers see the fight as a growing "political headache" that they cannot continue to support.

"The brewing fight is a political headache for the GOP leadership and vulnerable Republicans who will have to take tough votes on keeping any ballroom funding that survives a Byrd-Rule challenge in the budget reconciliation package," The Hill explained. "A group of Senate Republicans have privately made it clear to Thune that they don’t want to vote on providing up to $1 billion for Trump’s 90,000-square-foot ballroom, but Thune is under pressure to deliver on one of Trump’s top priorities."

Lawmakers have expressed these frustrations to the party's leader as well, arguing that they should not be forced into "tough votes" to defend what Democrats have dubbed "Trump's palace." One anonymous Republican told The Hill they doubt the party even has the votes for the ballroom funding.

"There’s a lot of discomfort because of the amount [if funding] and it came up out of the blue and it was supposed to be privately funded,” the senator said. “Those are the kinds of questions people are asking. If it gets ‘Byrded’ out, I don’t think some people are going to cry about it."

When the Republican primary for Texas' 2026 U.S. Senate race was decided in a Tuesday, May 26 runoff, it wasn't even close: Incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) lost to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton by roughly 27 percent, the New York Times reported. Bloomberg News' Steven Dennis has a major takeaway on the primary's outcome: extremely low voter turnout.

Dennis points to the turnout in Starr County, Texas, which is in the southern part of the state in the Rio Grande Valley, as a prime example.

The Bloomberg reporter, on X, noted, "There are 66000 people who live in Starr County. John Cornyn got 24 votes."

According to Daniel Nichanian, founder and editor of Bolts Magazine, Starr wasn't the only South Texas county where voter turnout was really low.

On X, Nichanian posted, "Truly low turnout in some counties in South Texas. In Starr County, Trump got roughly 9,500 votes in 2024. 90 votes counted in the GOP runoff today. In Webb County, Trump got roughly 33,300 votes in 2024. Roughly 2,300 voters today."

According to figures cited by Nichanian, the Webb County turnout in the May 26 runoff was a fraction of the Webb County turnout in the United States' 2024 presidential race.

Webb County's largest city is Laredo on the U.S./Mexico border.

Democratic strategist and insider Rachel Murphy Azzara had her own takeaway on the May 26 turnout, emphasizing that the most hardcore MAGA voters were the ones who showed up.

Azzara, on X, observed, "A couple takeaways: Cornyn's turnout operation fell short and only the most activist MAGA base bothered to vote."

Now that Paxton, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, is officially the nominee, he enters the general election and is going up against the Democratic nominee: centrist Texas State Rep. James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian. And some well-known conservatives, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) and veteran Washington Post columnist George Will, believe the Senate seat is in play for Democrats.

Although Democrats perform well in Texas' large urban centers like Houston, Austin, Dallas and San Antonio, they haven't won a statewide race in the Lone Star State since 1994. But Paxton is a very controversial and divisive figure, even among conservatives — and Thune, during the Senate primary, warned fellow Republicans that Talarico would have a much harder time competing against Cornyn than he would against Paxton. Now, Paxton is officially the Republican that Talarico will be competing with in the general election, and GOP strategists are warning that their party will have to spend a lot money trying to defeat Talarico.

President Donald Trump's scandals, gaffes and controversies continue to pile up, with The Hill reporting that Republicans in Congress are growing "uncomfortable" with his conduct as polls show their midterm odds tanking further than ever before.

"Senate Republicans facing worsening polls want President Trump to rein in his extreme rhetoric, which included an attack on Pope Leo XIV for being 'WEAK on crime' and a threat to wipe out Iran’s civilization and find a quick end to the conflict with Tehran," The Hill's Tuesday morning report detailed. "GOP lawmakers are used to Trump’s hyperbolic style but want to distance themselves from his most incendiary comments as polls show Democrats have improving chances of picking up Republican-held seats in North Carolina, Ohio and Nebraska."

Speaking about Trump's attacks on the pope on Monday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune pushed back, a sentiment shared by numerous other Republican senators.

"I would leave the church alone," Thune said.

"I think popes and presidents should stay in their respective lanes, it’s better for all of us," Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican, added in his own statement. "I agree that he should leave the church alone but the church should probably leave politics alone, too. We happen to have an outspoken president and a pretty outspoken pope."

"I thought, personally, that the approach that the president took in terms of directly attacking the pope was inappropriate," Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, said.

Republicans also expressed outrage and indignation after Trump shared an AI-generated image of himself as a Christlike religious figure, with some calling the image "blasphemous." Lawmakers who spoke with The Hill were quick to note that Trump has since deleted the photo in a rare act of retreat in the face of scandal.

"It’s a rough-and-tumble world of politics, anybody can be open to criticism. But I was glad to see the president take down that post he made," Sen. Steve Daines, a Montana Republican, told the outlet.

"I’m glad they took it down. I think he thought about it more and took it down. It’s a good decision," Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, added in his own statement.

While Republicans have long been tipped to lose the House majority in the midterms, odds are increasingly shifting against them in the Senate as well. On Monday, a new Cook Political Report found that four major Senate races in November had shifted towards the Democrats, further imperiling the GOP's grip on the chamber.

Donald Trump has once again screwed over Republican leaders in Congress—and possibly himself—even as they bow to him daily, giving him everything he wants.

Backing Texas Attorney general Ken Paxton, who’s faced several criminal investigations and is hated by many Texans, over the incumbent John Cornyn (also not well-liked but not with the baggage Paxton has in a general election) in next week’s runoff election was a slap in the face to the GOP Senate leadership, which includes Cornyn himself. And if Trump pushes Paxton over the top, it’s the much riskier bet going up against the popular, young, dynamic and well-funded Democratic candidate James Talarico, as Democrats think this could be the favorable environment to turn Texas blue, as formidable as task as it is.

But Trump doesn’t care about loyalty or politics. He just wants to wield power, helping thugs like Paxton who, like him, have been indicted and impeached and hypocritically engaged in marital infidelity but are still atop the GOP’s corrupt heap.

In just the last few days, there’s been little heard out of the GOP leadership in Congress as Trump is planning to engage in an unprecedented heist, setting up a “compensation fund” of $1.8 billion—taxpayer dollars billed as a “settlement” for Trump dropping his bogus lawsuit against the IRS—so that he’ll have a slush fund for January 6th insurrectionists he pardoned and all of his buddies who committed crimes.

And the Senate leadership has been ready to give Trump a billion dollars for his ballroom, again taxpayer dollars, even as he said it would all be paid for by private donors. As the project got snagged by the Senate parliamentarian ruling that it can’t pass under budget reconciliation (and thus with only 51 votes), a lot of cowardly Republicans quietly breathed a sigh of relief, even as Trump demanded Senate Majority Leader John Thune fire the parliamentarian and as some Republicans scraped around, looking for ways to make changes to include the money.

But Trump couldn’t care less even if they pull it off. Trump is on a high after he took out Indiana GOP legislators who wouldn’t redistrict the state’s congressional maps, backing their MAGA challengers in the primary who defeated most of them. And then, on Saturday, Trump successfully took down Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who voted to impeach Trump, as the Trump-backed candidate won the primary. Trump then set sights on Thomas Massie, facing a tough primary on Tuesday with millions of dollars from MAGA billionaires backing his opponent.

It’s kind of like the Venezuela invasion, which Trump held up as a massive success after installing a puppet regime that is still repressing people while giving over oil to Trump. He was on a high and then thought he could conquer Iran, only to dig himself into a ditch. The same dynamics are in play.

Trump had reportedly earlier been planning to back Cornyn. He knew what was the best thing for the GOP—and himself, if he didn’t want investigations should Republicans lose the Senate—and likely was talked into it even though Paxton was his thuggish kindred spirit.

But then it was leaked to the media. And Paxton came out saying he’d drop out of the race if the Senate passed the Save Act, the voter suppression bill requiring a birth certificate to vote. And he urged Thune to get it passed by killing the filibuster, something Trump has long demanded of Thune. This was seen by Trump as a powerful moment—and by White House aides as a “genius” move on Paxton’s part—and it got Trump moving over to endorsing Paxton.

It’s always like that with Trump. Even when he knows something’s bad—and has enough people around him showing him the proof—he goes with his “gut” in the end, which is really just his narcissism talking. And more often than not, he screws himself.

Talarico, make no mistake, has an uphill battle in a red state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since the 1980s. But the polls have shown him competitive against either Paxton or Cornyn, but better against Paxton. And he has higher favorability ratings too.

Reporters covering Capitol Hill said Republican leaders were freaked out after Trump’s endorsement of Paxton. Andrew Desiderio from Punchbowl News wrote on X that Senator Susan Collins is concerned: she “doesn’t understand,” he wrote, how Trump could back Paxton, who she said is “ethically challenged.” (Hahaha!) Thune apparently just threw his hand up in the air. Senator Lisa Murkowski said Texas is “all but lost.”

All of this is delicious to see, as Republicans have spent millions of dollars trying to help Cornyn through this runoff next Tuesday. But of course, there’s always the chance Paxton loses—polls have him and Cornyn tied—and Trump is deflated as his endorsement fizzles. There’s also, of course, the very real possibility that Paxton prevails over Talerico, and then we have another scandal-plagued, sleazy GOP senator.

But for Democrats, a scenario in which Trump is doing things that could undermine the GOP is the best scenario to have. And it is yet more proof of how Trump’s own megalomania drives him, even when it’s clear it might not end well for him.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, 76, has given no public indication he plans to retire — but if he does, Senate Republicans stand ready to fast-track President Donald Trump’s nominee through committee and lock in a confirmation before the November midterm elections.

“Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday that Republicans are ‘prepared’ for the possibility of a retirement as speculation swirls that Alito, a conservative vote on the Supreme Court, is weighing stepping down at the end of the current term, slated for the end of June or early July,” the Washington Examiner reports.

“That’s a contingency, I think, around here you always have to be prepared for,” Thune said. “And if that were to happen, yes, we would be prepared to confirm.”

Alito is thought to want to avoid a similar repeat of events when liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg eschewed requests from the left to retire during President Barack Obama’s term. Republican President Donald Trump was able to fill her seat upon her death with a conservative, changing the balance on the Court.

Justice Alito is not the court’s oldest justice — that distinction belongs to Justice Clarence Thomas, 77, who has given no public indication he plans to step down either.

“I hope they stay ’cause I think they’re fantastic, OK?” Trump told Politico in December 2025, referring to both Alito and Thomas. “Both of those men are fantastic.”

Should Alito or Thomas — or both — retire, Trump could secure a conservative majority, possibly for decades to come. Chief Justice John Roberts, also a conservative, is 71 and is not rumored to be seeking retirement.

The three remaining conservative justices Trump placed on the court during his first term. Amy Coney Barrett is 54, Brett Kavanaugh is 61, and Neil Gorsuch is 58.

The three liberal justices are Sonia Sotomayor, 71, Elena Kagan, 65, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, 55.